Page 100 of My Three Hometown Hard Hats
“Hadley’s going to love it.”
I hope so, kid.
“So, what do you need my help with?” she asks, her brows furrowing together in her mischievous way.
“You guys okay in there?” Hadley’s voice comes from the living room.
“We’re fine,” Evelyn and I both say at the same time. Looking at each other, we both start opening and closing cabinets… loudly.
“We’re just being thorough in here,” I say.
Con had better keep her right where she is right now.
I drop my voice even lower than before. “I need you to walk in and say you found this egg, but tell Hadley you need her help opening it.”
She smirks, nodding her head quickly. I place the ring back in the egg, making sure it’s closed tight. I hold it out to her. She takes it reverently in her hand.
“Don’t lose it. Okay?”
“I won’t. I promise,” she says seriously. “Go. I’ll be in in a second.”
Kissing her forehead. I walk back into the living room, wiping my sweaty palms on my sweatpants.
I try not to meet Hadley’s eyes as I walk in, knowing I’ll probably blow this whole plan to shit if she stares into my soul right now like she always does.
Sitting on the arm of the sectional, I watch as Evelyn stands up from behind the island.Here we go.
HADLEY
“Found it,” Evelyn shouts, her head popping up in the kitchen.
She skips toward us with a golden egg in her hand and a smile plastered across her face. Con’s arm tightens around my waist, almost like he’s bracing for something.
She crouches down by her basket, opening a few of her other pastel-colored eggs with candy and coins in them. When she gets to the golden egg, she grunts, but it doesn’t open.
Brooks coughs to cover up a laugh. I crane my neck to look at him.What the heck is he laughing at?He just shakes his head, trying not to smile.Ooookay.
She holds the egg out to me. “Can you help me open it?”
I grab the golden egg, feeling something rattling around inside it. I don’t think it’s candy or coins.I wonder what they gave her in this one.
When I press on the middle seam, it easily pops open.Hmmm… this feels like a set up…
Then I see what’s lying at the bottom of the egg.That isn’t a fake ring. That’s a ring… ring. Like an engagement ring.
I look up, finding Evelyn beaming at me. All the guys are staring at me, too, with wide, nervous eyes.
I gulp down the saliva that I somehow forgot to swallow in the last fifteen seconds. Austin scoots over closer to me, pulling Evelyn up onto his lap.
Brooks kneels in front of me on both legs, not one, because they all know what a cliché I think getting down on one knee is.
Brooks gently grabs my hands, which are shaking, and pulls the ring out. It’s stunning—a solitary diamond on a delicate gold band that looks like a four-strand braid.
The four of us tied together.
Tears spring to my eyes at the enormity of what’s happening.
Conrad touches the side of my face, turning me toward him. “I had no idea when I sat down on that airplane, I was sitting next to my entire world.”
